One thing France knows how to do well is vacations. The average worker in France gets 37 paid vacation days a year, according to the World Tourism Organization. French school children, too, get more holidays and breaks than American kids. And they are well-deserved.
The last six weeks have been like a pressure cooker. You know what a pressure cooker does...it slowly builds up steam in a tight container, causing both the pressure and the temperature to rise, and cooking food very quickly. The girls have had a heavy workload at school, and lots of homework on nights and weekends. I think they felt just about "cooked"...and then we got the news that there would be a two-week vacation for the Toussaint holiday.
It was so nice for them to wake up this morning gradually, without the alarm clock. It was equally as nice for me! I also appreciated having conversations with them that didn't involve schoolwork. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so we walked to the park and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon together. We had "pizza & movie night" tonight, simply because we could: no homework is due tomorrow.
We are hoping to take a couple of day trips during the school break, possibly to Provence and the Beaujolais. Now we're just content to relax and enjoy the time off. Only 10 days are left in my "thankful month" experiment, and I'm so thankful that each one of these will be non-school days!
The French have some awfully good ideas.
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